REIGN OF TERROR THROUGHOUT GREECE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 109, 10 May 1943, Page 3

REIGN OF TERROR THROUGHOUT GREECE

AXIS FEARS INVASION

Nazis Cut Communications With Outside World

N.Z. Press Association.—Copyright Rec. 10.30 a.m. ' LONDON, May 9. The Germans, fearing an Allied invasion, have cut all Greek communications with the outside world, says the Exchange Telegraph correspondent at Istanbul. A real reign of terror exists and prisons overflow with arrested persons. The Germans say that if they are obliged to do so they will abandon Greece in ruins.

The British United Press correspondent at Ankara reports that Italians have started evacuating people of Turkish and Greek origin from the Dodecanese Islands and are paying particular attention to Greeks who would be a possible fifth column in the event of an Allied attack.

Tension in the Balkans soared last night at the reports current in all the capitals between Vienna and Istanbul that an Allied invasion of the Balkans is imminent, says the Sunday Express. The atmosphere is more electric than at any time since 1940.

The Turkish Embassy in London went out of its way to deny a report that Turkey had declared war on Germany and Bulgaria. The Bulgarian Legation in Bucharest, Rumania, issued a statement admitting "slight restrictions" on the border of Turkey and Bulgaria, although it asserted that the frontier was still open to trafiic. At the same time Berlin has openly accused the Allies of instigating Turkey to join in an invasion of the Balkans. It said that officers of the British general staff had begun negotiations with the Turkish staff.

A report from Ankara states that the President of Turkey, General Inonu, has received the German Ambassador, von Papen. The Foreign Minister of Turkey, M. Menemencoglu, was present. Berlin's alarm about the Balkans is evident, it says. Express trains loaded with German troops and war materials are moving into South-eastern Europe without pause, day or night. The airfields of Central Europe are packed with Gestapo officials and anti-invasion experts. The Istanbul correspondent of the Associated Press says travellers report that German troops are moving south through Hungary at a rate comparable with that which preceded the invasion of Geeece and Yugoslavia. Special transportation units have arrived in Budapest. The Italians are reported to be evacuating civilians from the Dodecanese Islands, in the Aegean Sea. The defences of the islands are being strengthened.